Stop arguing about EreHisu and EreMika; both should never have existed.
Summary:
- Romance has never been the focus of Attack on Titan.
- The series was very good at exploring other topics.
- Romantic love was the center of the finale.
- It would have been better if the finale had a different focus.
Romance has become the sore spot for both Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) ending haters and defenders. The former despise the relationship between Eren and Mikasa and think it was forced, and the latter can’t even stand the idea of Eren and Historia existing in the same room.
But what if both teams are actually right at the same time? What if there shouldn’t have been any romance between Eren and Mikasa and any hints at romance between Eren and Historia? A wild thought, but let us explain.
The series has so much more to offer besides romance
Attack on Titan was never about romantic relationships, and this is actually one of the reasons why so many fans loved the series so much. It just didn’t need to introduce romantic love and focus on it to keep the story entertaining.
Attack on Titan explores so many important and engaging topics like dealing with trauma, fight for survival, the meaning of life, friendship, betrayal, the cycle of violence, etc. Anyone can find something that will appeal to them in the series, and this is incredible.
But romance was always the weakest part of the series. It’s difficult to even say that Attack on Titan has canon couples. The closest thing we had to that before the Final Season was peculiar care between Historia and Ymir, and a lot of fans are still unsure that this is really what happened.
Romance should never have been the focus
Then the Final Season came, and now we have Eren and Mikasa, hints at Eren and Historia, Armin and Annie and even Mikasa and Jean? So much has happened in the final chapters of the story, and it’s difficult to believe it.
Some fans say that it would have been better if the relationship between Eren and Mikasa had been paid more attention to. It was obvious back in Season 1 that Mikasa was in love with Eren, but the finale revelation about him reciprocating became a shock to thousands of fans.
However, we disagree. This romance should never have happened in the first place. What if Mikasa saw Eren as her brother and her savior and not as a love interest?
The biggest part of the story would have remained the same, since this reason is good enough to explain her desire to protect the boy, but the ending would lose its meaning.
This leads us to the idea that the ending should also have chosen a different focus. And we have to admit that we’d prefer that.
There had to be another way to break the Titan Curse and stop the Rumbling, romance wasn’t needed. But the finale chose the fan service route and made thousands of fans confused and frustrated.